1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a packing or wrapping member (referred as "container" hereinafter) for an ink jet recording head, and more particularly, relates to the packing member for an exchangeable ink jet recording head.
The present invention also relates to a container of an ink jet head with which an ink tank is made integral and attachable to or detachable from the ink jet recording apparatus, and relates to a recovering method printing quality of the ink jet head.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, ink jet recording apparatuses have come into wide use as the output apparatuses of office computers, personal computers and word processors or the like.
An ink jet recording apparatus causes ink liquid in ink path of a recording head to discharge to thereby fly by the pressure generated by a piezo-electric element or the like to thereby effect recording on a recording medium, and has advantages such as low noise, low cost, capability of high-density recording and excellence in coping with colors.
Now, one type of ink jet recording apparatus is a the recording head interchange type recording apparatus. A predetermined usable time period exists in a recording head and therefore, a head which has reached this time period is exchanged for a new head to thereby ensure the reliability of the ink jet recording apparatus.
Among ink jet recording apparatuses, there is known one using an ink jet head (referred as "ink jet head cartridge") in which an ink tank containing therein ink which is a recording material and an ink jet head element (referred as "ink jet head unit" or "tank discharge portion") having the function of discharging the ink are made integral with each other. In such an ink jet head, there is adopted a method of exchanging the ink jet head itself together with the ink tank at a point in time at which the ink in the ink tank has been consumed by printing or when the discharge condition is aggravated for some reason or other and does not improve. Accordingly, discretely from a printer body, an integral ink tank type ink jet head removably mountable with respect to the printer is singly packaged for sale.
The transportation and preservation of such an integral ink tank type ink jet head have heretofore been accomplished with the integral ink tank type ink jet head 21 being contained in a housing 20 as shown in FIG. 1, and then a lid 22 being closed up tight by heat welding, or as shown in FIG. 2 with the ink jet head 21 being contained in the housing 20 with a tape 23 or the like attached to the discharge surface of the ink jet head 21 in which ink discharge openings 24 are disposed, and a lid being closed up tight by head welding. The increased viscosity of the ink caused by the evaporation of the ink solvent and the adherence of dust to the discharge opening portion are prevented by such a container.
Apart therefrom, in this recording head of the interchange type, during the first mounting of a head onto the recording apparatus or during the exchange of the head, a new head is mounted on the recording apparatus and a power source switch is closed to thereby effect the confirmation of printing and when discharge is unsatisfactory, a series of poor discharge recovery operations are effected. Also, when mounting a new head on the recording apparatus during the first mounting for the starting of the use of the recording apparatus or during the exchange of the head, it has often been the case that the new head requires the performing of the poor discharge recovering operation for the reason that new head has been in custody for long period of time.
Further, for the poor discharge recovering operation, a recovery mechanism has been discretely disposed in the recording apparatus or provided at the home position or the like of a carriage. FIG. 3 of the accompanying drawings shows an example of this, and the recovery mechanism 61 is provided at the home position of the carriage 62. When the carriage 61 comes to the home position, the cap 63 of the recovery mechanism 61 covers a discharge opening surface of recording head 64 mounted on the carriage and by operating a suction pump 65, ink liquid is sucked and discharged from the discharge opening of the recording head. Numeral 66 denotes a platen, 67 denotes a recording sheet, and 68 denotes a guide for the carriage 62. Thus, the ink jet head is provided with a mechanism for causing ink to flow out of the ink jet head by sucking the ink toward the printer body or pressurizing the ink when the ink jet head causes unsatisfactory printing, to thereby improve the printing condition, i.e., a so-called recovery mechanism.
However, in the above-described example of the prior art, when an attempt is made to take an ink jet head out of a new container and use it, the viscosity of ink in the discharge opening portion of the ink jet head may increase because of evaporation or the like of the ink solvent from the discharge openings of the ink jet head while the ink jet head is preserved in the container, or the stable discharge condition of the ink from the discharge openings may not be maintained, and there is no guarantee that the printing condition during the arrival of the printer is good. Also, as the time a printer is preserved increases, the frequency of the unsatisfactory printing upon the arrival of the printer becomes higher.
In other words, in the example of the prior art described above, once the lid of the package is peeled off, the air-tightness with respect to the external environment is lost. Even if the integral ink tank type recording head is again returned to and preserved in the package when the printer is not used for a long period of time, hermetic sealing cannot be secured. As a result the increased viscosity of the ink increases and dust adheres to the discharge openings because of evaporation of the ink solvent and unsatisfactory printing occurs when the recording head is then mounted on the printer. There is also the disadvantage that where the lid of the package is unsatisfactorily welded to the housing and there are holes or cracks in the lid and housing or where the recording head is left unused for a long period of time and preserved in the package, solidification of the ink in the discharge openings occurs. In order to solve these problems, printer bodies are provided with an ink recovery mechanism, but they have the disadvantage of a high cost.
Accordingly, even a new ink jet head sometimes requires the cumbersome operation of operating a recovery mechanism provided in the printer body when the printer arrives. Also, in this case, the recovery mechanism must be provided on the printer body side of the apparatus, and this has led to the increased cost and bulkiness of the printer body. Further, if the recovery mechanism is provided on the printer body side of the apparatus, the production of waste ink produced after the recovering operation requires a large waste ink reservoir (an ink absorber) on the supposition that a large amount of waste ink will be produced from the ink jet head used during the term during which the printer is guaranteed, and this has led to the problems of the contamination and increased cost of the printer body.
To summarize, the operation of effecting a poor discharge recovering operation on a new recording head by a recovery mechanism to thereby achieve stability of discharge is rather cumbersome, and to provide such a recovery mechanism in the recording apparatus, a space therefor must be provided in the recording apparatus.